Disney holds the key to many of our childhoods. Whether or not you were as avid a fan of their movies as we were, the ripple effect of their work has most likely affected you just as much as it has affected us. There's not a facet of our modern entertainment that hasn't been influenced by those early Disney films and the franchises that followed. People who joke that eventually Disney will own everything are sounding less and less crazy with each passing year. It's ironic that a company that has chosen a mouse as its mascot has become such a titan.

Despite the gargantuan nature of their climb to power, credit must be given where credit is due. Disney did not become what they are for nothing. They created beloved cartoons that are recognized around the world. They still set the standard of excellence for animated films to this day. The stories they tell and the characters they introduce are gripping and engaging. Millions flock to see the latest Disney film released in theaters, and for good reason: the movies are fantastic! I don't mean to toot a horn that's been tooted before, but I can't help gushing over how phenomenal most Disney classics are.

However, as with most things that appear to have a sheen of perfection around them, there can be some major mistakes lurking beneath the glistening surface. Clearly Disney knows how to tell a story, but even they can fall prey to a lack of plot oversight. Here we have written a list that tells of some of Disney's biggest plot holes and most intriguing unanswered questions. If you're a fan of animated Disney films, then this is the list for you.

25 The Lion Siblings

Simba and Nala, without a doubt, are a romantic couple. You don't get an Elton John song titled "Can You Feel The Love Tonight?" unless you are romantically inclined. However, Simba and Nala are not just childhood friends who grew into more adult feelings. They are also brother and sister. That's right. In all likelihood, they are each other's half-sibling. The way that a lion pride works is that there is one male lion with many female lionesses around him. And the movie doesn't exactly dispute this. Mufasa, Simba's dad, is the only male lion in the pride, which means that all cubs within the pride are his. They don't tell you these kinds of things when you're a kid, and when you realize the veracity of it, it gives your favorite childhood movie a very different feel.

24 The Dog Days Of Disney

When you're a kid and you're watching a Goofy cartoon, you don't pause and wonder about Goofy's species. Goofy is a funny guy, so you spend your time watching his cartoons laughing at his antics and trying to copy that insane laugh he does whenever he falls down a cliff. But now that we're all mature adults, we have the time and mental acuity to ponder on the bigger things in life, such as the confusing fact that both Goofy and Pluto are dogs, but only one of them is a pet. Pluto is Mickey Mouse's pet dog, unable to speak but able to roughly communicate in typical dog fashion with barks, whimpers, and howls. Goofy is one of Mickey's friends, and he can talk, drive, and have children i.e. Max. So how is this possible? Why is Pluto forever condemned to be a pet? Even the chipmunks got voices.

23 Monster Child Care

Boo was one of the most endearing aspects of Monsters Inc., and that's saying a lot, because the entire movie was endearing. Her cute scamperings in Monstropolis with Mike and Sully were a riot of chuckles. But one question we never see answered is how her parents reacted to the fact that their toddler daughter was missing for nearly a whole day. Boo is young and can barely talk, and her well-furnished bedroom shows us that her parents do care for her. They must have been worried sick at not finding their daughter in her bed where they left her. We don't get to see this side of the story, but we've all got to wonder at their reaction to her disappearance.

22 A Growing Boy

A little known fact about me is that Robin Hood is one of my favorite Disney movies. I constantly whistle the tune that the rooster sings in the beginning of the movie, and I can quote it like nobody's business. But one thing I never noticed was Prince John's lack of a mane (even though The Lion King was another one of my favorite Disney movies). Male lions grow a mane, a thick mat of hair around their necks. Mufasa and Simba's glorious manes are prime examples of what I'm talking about. Prince John, the main antagonist of the Robin Hood, doesn't have a mane. This means he is either the most elderly-sounding young lion without a mane, or something really messed up with his development that he couldn't grow one. Given how he sucks his thumb whenever he thinks of his mother, I think there's a good case for either option.

21 Ice Powers Anyone?

Another mystery in the world of Disney is how Elsa got ice powers. AfterAnna gets injured by Elsa as they are playing, their father rushes to a library and pulls open a book where he finds the location of a race of rocky troll-things that can help cure Anna. Since the trolls end up being real, we know that the book was not some book of legends, but one of history. So even the trolls have a bit of a background with the kingdom. But where is the precedent for Elsa's power? Were there ever any like her before? Was a magical curse involved? Is Disney delving into the X-Men franchise and creating the mutant gene? We get no answers on this front, so the mystery remains.

20 Dwarfs Can Make It Rain

In the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Snow White runs away from the evil queen and stumbles onto a little cottage where seven dwarfs live in a rather cramped style. The cottage is in a state of disarray and is dustier than sin. The dwarfs are not at home when she first breaks into their abode; they are working in a gem mine, digging up sparkly diamonds and the like. If that doesn't make you scratch your head in bewilderment, let me explain why my mouth dropped open in shock considering this. If the dwarfs mine precious gems, then why are they living in a dusty hovel in the woods? What are they doing with those gems? Shouldn't the dwarfs be as rich as the sky? They should be able to pay for a cook instead of having to rely on a person who broke into their home and slept on their beds without permission.

19 Late Night Kissing

When a princess kisses a prince who has been transformed into a frog, he is able to revert back into his true form and they live happily ever after. That's how the story is supposed to go. Unfortunately for Tiana, if you're not a princess and you kiss a frog, you turn into a frog yourself. Tiana and the frog prince Naveen then have to go find a real princess for him to kiss in order for them to regain human form in Disney's The Princess and the Frog. They have to make do with Charlotte La Bouff, princess of the Mardi Gras Parade, so they rush to find her and kiss her before midnight, because after midnight, she's no longer the princess of the parade. They find her and get her to agree to the kiss, but midnight had passed, so Charlotte is no longer a princess. So... why didn't Charlotte turn into a frog like Tiana?

18 Time Runs Out For Us All

Time ages all things. People come and go, buildings are erected then crumble, and we all know it is just the passage of time. Even clocks have to face the erosion of time. But apparently, the timepiece within the crocodile in Peter Pan is immortal. You would think that the bloody insides of a crocodile might contribute to the disintegration of an alarm clock, but that's not the case with this particular crocodile and this particular alarm clock. Even without being wound daily, the clock keeps ticking, alerting Captain Hook to the crocodile's presence. But by all rights, this clock should have died out, dissolved by crocodile gut juices or through the slow progress of time.

17 Some Soul Searching

Pain and Panic, Hades' henchmen in Disney's Hercules, never come across as truly reliable. They seem like incompetent goofballs, even with those sinister-sounding names. So why Hades would trust these two to kidnap and murder baby Hercules is a mystery in and of itself. What is an even bigger mystery is why Hades wouldn't verify that they had done the job correctly. As ruler of the underworld, Hades has access to those soul strings that the three Fates snip when someone dies. Wouldn't it have been simple for Hades to just go check on Hercules' soul string in order to make sure that Pain and Panic had offed the kid? Instead, he didn't, and the whole movie was able to take place.

16 Have Mind Control? Use It

One of the reasons that Jafar was so despicable in the movie Aladdin was that he would stoop to the lowest of deceptions, pretending to be the Sultans "most trusted adviser," when really he was trying to usurp him and marry his daughter. The manner in which Jafar deceived the king was also supremely wicked. He used his golden cobra staff to perform some kind of mind control on the Sultan, almost like hypnosis. This was highly effective, but begs the question: why didn't Jafar use it more often? If Jafar had pulled out that staff and hypnotized Aladdin, Jafar would have won. Not that I want Jafar to win, but come on. He had a mind-controlling staff. He totally could have won.

15 Portrait Of The Future

According to the prologue of the animated Beauty and the Beast, the curse the Beast was put under was to last until his twenty-first birthday. At that time, the last rose petal would fall from the enchanted rose and he would remain a beast unless he had found someone to  love who loved him back. We all know this. However, if, as Lumiere laments, the castle has been under the spell for ten long years, that would mean the Beast was eleven years old when the cure was placed. So why is there a portrait of an adult prince in the Beast's room? How is it that a painting of himself could have been made when he was only eleven when he was last human?

14 Alternate Timelines?

In Monsters, Inc., Mike and Sully are portrayed as long-time friends. Mike even jokes that Sully has been jealous of his good looks since the fourth grade, implying that they knew each other back then. Then why is it that in the sanctioned prequel, Monsters University, Mike and Sully are meeting for the first time? The prequel has them dislike each other at first, but then grow to respect one another, developing the friendship we see later on. But nothing accounts for the continuity error. Are we perhaps seeing some alternate timeline? Or was Mike's joke just meant to say that Sully has been jealous of him for a long time? Or was the error simply overlooked by the creators?

13 Soylent Green Is People

It's a fish-eat-fish world out in the ocean. Bigger fish prey on smaller fish, and that is considered the norm. But in The Little Mermaid, things are seen in a more lighthearted kind of way. The fish talk and sing to each other. Everyone is friendly with everyone else. (Except for that shark. That shark is a jerk.) Ariel, our beloved protagonist, has friends of all kinds under the sea. But she has no problem with her love interest consuming them. While at dinner with Eric, after she is already voiceless and leggy, she is served stuffed crabs. She manages to hide Sebastian from the rest of the table, but we are left to assume that she ate the meal along with Eric and everyone else. Is it wrong to eat fish if you're part fish yourself?

12 A Cup Of Problems

Let's go over the timeline for the Beast's curse. The rose, which was essentially an hourglass for the length of the curse, was set to lose its last petal on the Beast's twenty-first birthday. And the curse has lasted for ten years, which means that the Beast was eleven years old when the Enchantress cursed him and the castle. So keep in mind that ten years passed while the denizens of the castle were furniture. Now, Chip, the little boy that rushes into Mrs. Pott's arms at the end of the movie, seems like a seven- or eight-year-old boy max. Which would mean that he was "born" at some point while the inhabitants of the castle were still household appliances. Wait...what?

11 That's Just Who You Are Now

Every other character in The Lion King has a name that only signifies themselves, except for Scar. That is some grade-A cruelty right there. (Okay, I'll admit, it's not as cruel as murdering your brother and then attempting to murder your nephew, and then lying about it so that you could take over your brother's kingdom and turn it into a wasteland. But I digress.) Scar is named Scar, presumably for the scratch he has over one of his eyes. When did he get that scar? Did he receive it when he was young enough to not have a name yet, so that is why his parents elected to call him Scar? Or did he get it when he was older, and then everybody started calling him by his physical deformity like a bunch of insensitive jerks?

10 That's A Hefty Fine

I like dogs as much as the next person. More, even. They're man/woman's best friend, truly selfless in their love for you. But even I would draw the line at living with 101 Dalmatians in a house in London. Those are 101 puppies you're going to have to bathe, 101 morning poops you're going to have to clean, and 101 mouths to feed with whatever income owners Roger and Anita earn. It's all fine and dandy to be glad your dogs and their puppies have returned and to sing a song about it, but it's another thing to be practical. No way is it healthy for all 101 of those dogs to live in a house in London. Anita and Roger would have to move somewhere with more space in order to be responsible pet owners. And that might mean they have to get new jobs. Who wants to bet that they actually gave the puppies away?

9 Unfit For Service

What Mulan did for her father was a noble thing, taking his place in the army so that he wouldn't have to go to war with a bad leg. But was it necessary? When Mulan begins her training under Captain Shang, she is less than stellar. Her and the rest of the recruits struggle to keep up with the rigorous training regimen. And when it becomes clear to Shang that Ping (aka Mulan) is too weak to keep up, he tells her to pack up and go home. Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on there. She can go home? If she is is physically unfit for the army, she can be sent home? Well, for crying out loud, why couldn't her father pop on over to Shang, show him how unfit he is for service, and then be sent home himself? Was Mulan's whole ordeal for nothing? She saved China, so there is that.

8 Indestructible Shoes

Perhaps the most iconic of plot holes is the continued existence of Cinderella's glass slippers. When Cinderella's Fairy Godmother told her that the magic spell that gave her a nice dress, a pumpkin carriage, and those sick shoes would end at midnight, Cinderella knew that she would have to book it away from the ball before midnight. We know that Cinderella loses one of her slippers, the prince finds it, and that's the only clue he uses to locate Cinderella again. Once the last stroke of midnight fell, all of Cinderella's pretty things disappeared, except for those shoes. How? Why? It's never explained, but I am of the opinion that the Fairy Godmother could see into the future and knew that the prince would be smitten with Cinderella, so she let the slippers continue existing so that he could find Cinderella after the ball was over. But that's just my guess.

7 PG For Parental Guidance

Regardless if you like or dislike the live-action Beauty and the Beast film, it does at least solve some of the plot holes that plagued the original animated version. One of the mysteries it solves is the question of where Beast's parents are. In the original, Beast was really young when he was cursed, and he was still called a Prince, meaning that his parents, the king and queen, were presumably still alive. And if they were alive when he was cursed, where were they for the next ten years? Were they hidden amongst the furniture, not appearing to Belle the way that others did? Had they died? What happened to them? Disney has a bad reputation when it comes to parents. They are either angelic and too good for the world, so much so that they die, or they are evil and horrible. Take your pick.

6 Read My Lips

This is probably the biggest plot hole on this list. In order to get two legs and meet Eric, the prince of her dreams, Ariel gives up her voice and agrees to a deal where she has to get Eric to kiss her within three days. She then spends her time wordlessly trying to communicate with Eric, wooing him slowly and without the added benefit of him knowing that she was the one who saved his life. Why didn't she just explain the situation to him in writing? Ariel can write, as proven when she signed her name on Ursula's contract in perfectly legible English. So why doesn't she use her inexplicably obtained writing skills to win the guy and save her life?